Small Business Tech Advancements You Should Care About

July 18, 2017

18July2017

Microsoft, Google, PayPal, Social media, Silicon Valley, any number of buzzwords make an impact on our daily lives as a small business startup. Especially when you dig your nails into the technology market, and even for those of us whom do not, there is a lot of advancement to take into consideration. This week on our #TechTuesday, we have picked a few of these major advancements to bring to attention and explain how they matter to you.

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In a world of constant technological advancement, it's hard to pin down what new technologies and features are worth investigating. Thankfully, with the power of the internet, we can help you narrow that down! Some of the things on our list this week might seem like small features, but they can have a big impact on your workflow in different ways.

1. PayPal is bringing its payment options to iOS devices.

To some, this may not be that exciting of an advancement, and admittedly it is a pretty small feature. The reality though is that it has a pretty big impact, as a large percent of the current mobile market operates on iOS devices. PayPal has announced that all apple products will now have their service as an option for payments on services like their App Store, iTunes, and more. Why is this important? Well, previously your customers may have only had the ability to add PayPal as their payment option on desktops with Mac and Windows when configuring their Apple accounts, and only for iTunes. Now, they will be able to fund your business from any device that their Apple account is connected to, which opens you to a wider consumer base for those whom did not feel comfortable entering their credit information in places where they did not feel safe. In addition to this update, the PayPal option will be available in 11 new countries outside of teh US, including Canada, Mexico, France, Australia, and Germany.

2. You can now add Real-Time captions to your PowerPoint presentations.

Dubbed "Presentation Translator", the tool added to the popular presentation software by Microsoft allows you to include real-time captions to a live presentation in a wide variety of languages, using the power of "machine learning". After downloading the add-in to PowerPoint for the 2013 or 2016 versions, users can speak in Arabic, Mandarin, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, English, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish, and any listeners can see content translated into one of more than 60 different languages. To some, this might not be that big of a deal, but to those of our entrepreneurs that present themselves to an international crowd, or any multilingual crowds, this is a groundbreaking feature to allow a clearer form of communication in your presentations!

3. A watch strap is making drone control that much easier.

Rounding out our list with a small but neat innovation, a research center in Switzerland by the name of Empa has developed new technology for drone flight integrated into an inconspicuous, normal looking watch strap. Sounding more like a hobbyist innovation, the implications of this new advancement is subtle but powerful. This strap allows the user to convert their hand movements into commands for the drone that correspond with their device's flight patterns. For example, waving their hand left or right causes the aircraft to turn accordingly, and making a fist may cause them to land. This innovation will open up drone flight to a lot of new customers, making the ability to fly extremely more easy and accessible. It will also allow drone use to see a rise in many fields, especially for commercial photography where aerial and distanced photos can be more easily, and affordably, acquired.

S-FX is a technology consulting agency specializing in web design, digital marketing, branding, and business development for small businesses, non-profit organizations, and startups. Based in New Jersey, serving clients across the continental United States with seo optimization, graphic design, analytics, e-marketing, crm, and cms implementations.